Back in November, on a Sunday after a home football game at Virginia Tech, Tammy and I made our way back home via the Blue Ridge Parkway, heading north from Roanoke. The fall colors were still vivid, and this drive gave me the opportunity for several photos.

The pictures almost did not happen, however, since the morning started with my camera giving me fits (the "dreaded" Canon error 99). A couple quick emails later with Rich, and he had provided me with a nice set of troubleshooting steps that eventually got my camera back in working order.

Speaking of pictures. In my last post I mentioned that a change at my current photo hosting company has led to the decision to switch to Flickr. I have begun the massive effort of moving all my photos to Flickr. As I write this post, I have uploaded 7900 pictures to Flickr (spanning from 2005 through the Rapidan Loop hike from July of this year). I still have the remainder of the photos from this year to get uploaded before I begin to convert the posts in this blog to reference Flickr hosted photos. My goal is to have all my pictures uploaded to Flickr before my next trip (flying to Miami on New Year's Day...next Tuesday!) so that whatever pictures I take on that trip go straight to Flickr. I have no idea how long it will take me to convert this blog :-/

Anyhow, this blog post is about fall foliage. Here are a few photos of the leaves.

One interesting find in Chincoteague NWR, although definitely not an incredible find, was a small group of juvenile White Ibis. This species breeds in the southeast corner of the United States, but not as far north as Virginia. Their winter range still includes extreme southeast United States, but also the Caribbean, both Mexican coasts and a few bits of South America. In other words, range maps for the White Ibis never really show them occurring as far north as Virginia.

But they do. You can usually find them along the coast in late summer and early fall. I think the first year birds wander a bit after they leave their parents, and can end up in places like Chincoteague. These were roosting in a stand of trees by the road to the beach within Chincoteague NWR.

On an unrelated note, I will be changing the service that I use to provide online hosting and backup for all of the pictures I take. My current service (Phanfare) has announced some changes to its service that demonstrates to me that I am not part of their target demographic (photo sharing for friends and family...not photo hosting for someone who does not care who has access to their photos). Six months from now, all the links I have in this blog that point back to a picture hosted by Phanfare will break. Grrrrr! So, in addition to adding new blog content as I collect more photos (I am heading to Miami next...Go Hokies!), I will also be converting all my previous blog content (over 300 posts going back to 2005...sigh) to point to pictures that will eventually be hosted on Flickr.

[edit: it took me a day to figure out that the word "Caribbean" has one r and two b's, instead of the other way around :-) ]

After my stay in Virginia Beach, I headed up the coast for a stay in the little town of Chincoteague, and the chance to bird Chincoteague NWR. The days were gray and overcast, so I did not really get many memorable photographs, but at least it did not rain. And yes, there were some birds to be seen as well. For example, a pair of Bald Eagles.

As I was driving through the NWR on the road towards Tom's Cove and the beach, I noticed a Bald Eagle standing in the little bit of water that remained in the marsh. To me, this was a fairly odd place to see a Bald Eagle (not odd to see one at Chincoteague in general, but odd to see one standing in water). I watched for a bit, took the blurry picture below (sigh), and then watched as the bird flew up into a nearby stand of pine trees. That is when I noticed the second eagle (and took the second photo). They make a nice couple.

During my September visit to Back Bay NWR I noticed this light colored, football shaped thing in some nearby mud. A look through my binoculars told me what it was: the bleached out shell of some variety of turtle. I have seen and photographed plenty of turtles, but they were always alive, sunning themselves or in a hurry to some important date. This is my first dead turtle. Or, what remains of a dead turtle. There is nothing left of this guy but his big bleached out shell. Makes me wonder where all the other dead turtle shells end up. Probably under water and buried.

After I had hiked out and back on the Dike Trail at Back Bay NWR, I walked the Bay Trail (which is mostly boardwalk) behind the visitor center and parking lot. Along one section of the Bay Trail I noticed lots of large grasshoppers on either side of the boardwalk. As I walked along they would occasionally spook and propel themselves to some more comfortable resting spot. The first photo below is a photograph I got of one that decided not to vacate its current resting spot as I walked by.

Then I got to this sunny spot where a very large spider web was in the foliage on the left side of the boardwalk. Right in the middle of the web was a large black spider with a yellow pattern on his body (I think it is a Black and Yellow Argiope, also known as a Yellow Garden Spider or Yellow Garden Orbweaver). And the spider was occupied with a large meal. Caught in the spider's trap was one of those grasshoppers, its spindly legs clearly showing under the spider's binding silk.